1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a transport installation comprising a guide track, such as a railroad track or the like, for example, and one or more cars adapted to move on this track and to be driven by a common cable circulating continuously in the vicinity of the track; the invention is more particularly concerned with the structure of gripping means carried by the car or cars to attach it or them to the cable.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is a known transport installation using a car or cars able to accommodate a limited number of passengers (in the order of ten persons, for example) and designed to convey these passengers over average distances in the order of a few hundred meters. An installation of this kind is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,259. In this installation a cable is driven continuously in a closed loop along the track and the car or cars are temporarily attached to it by the above mentioned gripping means in order to be driven from one point to another. The operating force applied to the gripping means is developed within the car or each car, but it is not always easily ajustable. This is the case in particular when the car comprises a cabin suspended above a chassis by a system forming weighing means and when the aforementioned gripping force is developed by this system and is representative of the weight of the cabin. A system of this kind is described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,259, for example. Conditioning the operating force for the gripping means to the weight of the vehicle is advantageous in that the accleration imparted to the car while it is being attached to the cable may be kept within predetermined limits irrespective of the number of passengers. Attachment to the cable may be achieved gradually by providing for some degree of relative displacement between the cable and the gripping means. The invention is most particularly concerned with an enhancement of this concept whereby the total gripping force may be applied in two stages so that initially the car moves off with moderate acceleration and the full gripping force is applied to the cable at a second stage when the speed of the car is substantially stabilized and equal to that of the cable, in order that the car may be firmly attached to the cable on grades.